[g-a-devel] idea about a11y for the new GDM (was onboard and mousetweaks...)

[Francesco Fumanti <francesco fumanti gmx net>]

At 8:42 AM -0500 9/21/07, Brian Cameron wrote:
> Right.  It might make sense to provide configure options so users can
> configure whether they want GOK on onscreen to be the
> on-screen-keyboard.  This way distros could easily pick between them
> at configure time.  This would basically cause the gestures in the
> keymouse and dwellmouse gesture listeners to get set to the right
> command to launch each program.
>
> <snip>
>
> Again, the new D-Bus interfaces may make it easier to manage
> communication between GDM and the session to inform the session
> what AT programs to launch when the user logs in.


What about the following approach:

Instead of making GDM launch a specific program, it could indicate 
what Assistive Technology to launch. A partial list of Assistive 
Technologies could be:
(I tried to find one on the Internet, but did not have much success; 
so here is what currently comes to my mind)

slow keys
sticky keys
mouse keys
onscreen keyboard
dwelling
voice recognition
magnifier
screenreader
braille output
...

GDM would for example only tell to start the onscreen keyboard, 
leaving it to a sort of "Preferred Application"-Setting to decide 
whether to start gok, onboard, xvkb,...

There already is a "Preferred Application"-Settings Panel for the 
GNOME-session that allows the user to choose what application to 
launch for visual impairement and what application to launch for 
mobility impairement. But it would have to be adapted in that case.


Ubuntu being the only distribution that I have used, I don't know 
whether such an approach would make sense. It would render GDM 
independent of specific applications, but it would require a 
compatible Preferred Application Setting for the GDM Session; and 
also for the GNOME session, if we want the GNOME session to 
automatically enable the same Assistive Technologies (screen reader, 
or onscreen keyboard, or...) as those that wer enabled in the GDM 
session. (not necessarily the same application, for example the 
system administrator could set gok as onscreen keyboard during GDM, 
but a particular user could set the onscreen keyboard preference to 
use Dasher in his GNOME session)



> At the moement, I think it makes the most sense to try to get a11y
> plugged back into the D-Bus GDM branch and get it working.  Once that
> is done, it should be easier to talk about how we want to add new a11y
> features to GDM.

Though D-BUS has a mechanism to start applications, I don't know 
whether it could also be used in the scenario above; in other words, 
start a specific Assistive Technology without indicating what 
application to start. I only wanted to present the idea here. Anyway, 
the approach indicated in the above quotation will probably be the 
most practical.




> If you also are interested in enhancing GDM to launch AT programs
> in more novel ways (e.g. by directly integrating them into GDM), then
> we should discuss.

I looked for any standards on the Internet about how the different 
Assistive Technologies should be started, but I was not able to find 
something really useful yet. Now I wonder if any standards exists, 
and if they do exist, whether they are Desktop or even OS independent.


Cheers

Francesco